Eckert’s Apple Picking

Recently my family and I visited Eckert’s Orchards in Belleville, IL to go apple picking and to partake in the festivities. We decided to go with another family, my wife’s friends from her boxing class, who I will call The Applepickers.

After arriving we went straight to the apple picking area, thinking there would be a long line, we heard there usually is. To our pleasant surprise we were able to get right on the tractor-ride to the field.

The tractor-ride was great! A large tractor drives about 5 miles/hour dragging what looked like school bleachers on wheels behind it. It drove us across the farm to a large field with rows and rows of apple trees.

Up to this point in my life I had never gone apple picking before and after seeing the apple trees, I don’t believe I’d ever seen an apple tree either. The image I always had in my head was a large tree with a puffy top where the apples are, like in the book ‘The Giving Tree’. The trees at Eckert’s were small, almost bush like. It’s hard to believe that Newton was able to sit under one of these so the apple could fall on his head, or Washington actually got in trouble for cutting one down.

No matter the size of the tree, we enjoyed ourselves when picking the apples. Mr.Applepicker surprised everyone, being from New York, by being the best apple picker in the group. He knew right where to go and what apples were the best to eat. With his help we quickly filled our bags and headed back to the tractor.

The tractor took us to the next location, pumpkin picking. There was no way that I was going to pick a pumpkin on this trip. They day had just begun and I had no interest in carrying a pumpkin around with me all day. So we wondered the field for a while and looked at all the different pumpkins. My son was very interested in the idea that pumpkins grow on vines from the ground, and had fun running through the fields.

We took the tractor back to the main area of the farm to pay for our apples and whatever they could entice my wife into buying; we ended up only getting some pumpkin butter. The apples were a good deal, as far as apples go. They told us a full bag of apples is about 30 pounds, which we filled about half way up. I ended up spending about $12 on my apples, and a few bucks more for the butter, and have full intentions of giving some of the apples away to family and friends. I still haven’t given any apples away, we’ve made carmel apples and eaten as many as we could. But at the time of this writing we still have at least 12 apples left.  Time to start making pie and other deserts.

We wandered Eckert’s for a while longer and eventually found the ‘Fun Corral’, the children’s section of the Orchard. A large field of inflatable bounce pits, carny style rides, and animals trapped in cages. This was my son’s Meca. He was able to ride is first motorized ride, the Spinning Airplanes and also his second, the Tubs of Fun (which he nearly got sick on). We spent a quarter and fed the camel and saw the cows and lamas. And somehow I was able to get to skip the pony ride, he fell in love with it in Versailles. If the drive wasn’t so far for us I would be willing to go to the Fun Corral more often, it truly was fun.

All-in-all apple picking and the Fun Corral at Eckert’s was a great time and I hope to make it a family tradition to go back every year. Most likely I wont buy as many apples next time and if I do I’ll have a battle plan in place for what to do with them.

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